Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812’s Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin will be honored in the fall.

Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin
Monica Simoes

Smithsonian Magazine announced April 27 that Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 creator Dave Malloy and director Rachel Chavkin are the recipients of the American Ingenuity Award in History. The duo will receive the award at a gala at the National Portrait Gallery November 29.

“This is the biggest honor," Chavkin told Playbill. “Growing up in Washington, D.C., I grew up on the Smithsonian. Those museums and the cultural reservoirs they represent are such a national gift. My main creative obsession is looking at the present through the lenses of the past, so I can't really imagine a more special award.”

The new musical, which co-stars Josh Groban and Denée Benton, takes the audience back to Russia during the time of Czar Alexander I; in fact, the Imperial Theatre has been transformed to look like a 19th century nightclub in Moscow. To purchase tickets, click here. For discount tickets on select performances, click here.

“Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 is an explosion of relentless creativity,” said Michael Caruso, editor-in-chief of Smithsonian, in a statement. “The show is time travel at its most enchanting. It is so convincing that audiences walk out blinking, astonished to find themselves back in the present.”